


Extreme Probabilities

by Lapsed_Scholar



Series: Season 9 Rewrites and Musings [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: (for some reason), AU because Mulder's here, Burt Reynolds - Freeform, Episode: s09e13 Improbable, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Numerology, Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 13:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14333022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lapsed_Scholar/pseuds/Lapsed_Scholar
Summary: “We don’t know that Goddoesn’tlook like Burt Reynolds.”Reality usually is quite different from the pamphlet.





	Extreme Probabilities

**Author's Note:**

> A few extended scenes and a few slightly altered ones for "Improbable." Also contains references to both "Syzygy" and, obliquely, "3."
> 
> The title is Dana Scully's fault entirely.

Dana Scully tried not to dwell on Monica’s question. _“Do you believe the universe is knowable as a mathematical calculation of the whole, reducible to a single equation?”_ She did not, in fact. But the question still followed her for the rest of the day, continued to nag at her even after she got home that evening. She shook her head and tried again to put it out of her mind. It was ridiculous.

The problem was that the question was irretrievably connected to a case, and as the evening wore on, she only found herself more preoccupied with that case. The case that Monica had discovered by apparently comparing a set of magical numbers associated with all the victims. There were no such things as magical numbers. And yet, Monica had convincingly connected four seemingly-unrelated murders, uncovered new avenues of investigation into cases that had been regarded as essentially unsolvable. Scully had studied the autopsy results and crime scene photos herself. All four murders were undoubtedly committed by the same man. Similar wound pattern. Bruising with the same, distinctive “000” pattern left by the assailant’s ring.

She chased the remains of her dinner around on her plate with her fork. Could a child’s game really reflect some sort of cosmic, universal truth? That was silly. Wasn’t it? She was so preoccupied that she set her water glass down within grasping distance of William. Mulder reflexively moved it, but his hand was only barely faster than William’s.

This was clearly not good. She’d better try to get some of her focus back. “Mulder, what do you know about numerology?”

“It’s sorta like astrology, but with more math.” He offered William a Cheerio. William cheerfully put it in his mouth and then made a grab at his father’s hand again. “Eat that one first,” Mulder admonished him. They had learned the hard way to check the status of current food before offering new food.

“Do you believe in it?”

“No, of course not.”

She hadn’t expected that. “Wait... you don’t? Really?”

“Ouch, Scully. Give me a little credit. I don’t believe in _everything_ I come across. Although I confess that numerology never really appealed to me. It just always seemed... cruel, I guess. To reduce a person down to a series of generic characteristics based on birthdate—something that they have no control over. I don’t believe in astrology, either.”

“Then what was that bullshit in Comity with those girls? You know, when you made a colossal ass of yourself and went to talk to the astrologer and blamed completely explainable mass hysteria on planetary alignments?”

“First of all, I was _not_ the only one who made an ass of myself on that case. And I’m not sure you can honestly classify all of the phenomena we encountered in that town as _mass hysteria_ , unless you think purely human overreaction can also cause mass weapons discharge, seismic events, and electromagnetic surges.”

“All of those things have far more rational explanations than ‘the planets,’ although I do admit that having them all occur at once in one place was...odd. But you never answered how you think that any of that can be blamed on astrology if you don’t believe in it.”

“That’s because I _didn’t_  blame it on astrology. That was...an extremely rare confluence of unusual planetary alignments. I mean, the moon can influence human behavior, so who’s to say that a whole lot of planets, all in a particular, unusual formation couldn’t have an _outsized_ influence on human behavior?”

“Since when are we accepting as factual that the moon can influence human behavior?”

“You can take it up with the considerable literature on moon cycles and accident rates and other assorted phenomena.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. Discussing that Comity case still had the tendency to make them irritable with each other. (And sometimes also made her want to pounce on him and tear his clothes off with her teeth.) But she actually _did_ want his opinions on numerology, so she elected to stop antagonizing him, to shelve her predatory and possessive impulses, and to lighten the tone of her voice. “OK, well, leaving _planetary_ _confluences_ in the past—you wouldn’t credit numerology with anything?”

He accepted her refocusing without comment, the tension between them easing. “ _Anything_ is needlessly broad, Scully. But no.” He gave her a half-smile. “What brought all this on, anyway? You wanna do our charts or something? I’m afraid we’re not compatible.”

“What do you mean we’re not compatible? I thought you didn’t believe in it.”

“I don’t. That doesn’t mean I haven’t, I dunno, fiddled with it. I’m a four, and you’re a nine. We have a great deal of difficulty understanding each other and incompatible values. No future, I’m afraid.”

“Bah!” said William, waving a fist. Mulder gave him another Cheerio.

“Monica brought it up today... She had been casually calculating numbers for victims, I guess, when reading crime reports.”

“That does sound like something she’d do.”

“And she apparently discovered a _serial killer_ , Mulder. Out of nowhere, from the mere numerological convergences of four seemingly-unconnected murders.”

“Well, maybe you have a serial killer with an intense interest in numerology. Obsession over the arcane isn’t exactly unheard of in serial killers. Or, you know, maybe there’s more to numerology than I give it credit for.”

There was a beat of reflective silence. “So, you and I are doomed, huh?” she asked conversationally.

“Yep. My intensely practical, analytical, organized, and disciplined nature is too confining and smothering for your sensitive and idealistic dreamer.”

She stared at him. And couldn’t stop the eruption of a giggle. He grinned at her.

Affection seeped into her voice, warmed it. “I suppose you _would_ thwart any sort of classification system that tried to contain you. Astrology isn’t any better—Melissa once told me that your Libra is supposed to be the cooperative, harmonious peacemaker.”

“What’re you trying to say, Scully?”

Whatever she was trying to say was interrupted by William (sun sign: Gemini), who managed to grab his mother’s water glass while his parents were distracted with each other and tipped it over on his father. Mulder let out a startled yelp and jumped up, Scully started to laugh in earnest, and William, apparently expecting none of these consequences, started to cry.

“It’s OK, baby.” Scully reigned in her laughter, attempted a calm, matter-of-fact tone while she removed William from his high chair. “It’s only water.”

“Yeah, that’s easy for you to say,” retorted Mulder, who was brushing at himself with a dish towel. “It’s very _cold_ water.”

“Then just go ahead and get out of those wet clothes, Mulder,” she tossed over her shoulder as she walked into the living room with William.

“Pretty sure that’s how we ended up in this situation in the first place,” he called after her.

* * *

By the time Scully arrived at work the next day, the four cases that Monica had uncovered had become six cases, and those cases had the full attention of the FBI. She was called out of Quantico to assist, was, in fact, put in charge of forensics.

She called Mulder over a working lunch, autopsy reports spread out before her. He listened to her recounting of the situation in silence. A little too much silence for Mulder, actually.

He paused for a moment after she had finished, then asked, “...Aren’t you supposed to be teaching? They couldn’t get another pathologist to do this kind of field work?”

“Mulder. This is an active murderer. He’s killing people.”

“Yeah, serial killers do that. It’s right there in the job description.” A sigh. His voice sounded strained when he next spoke. “Just... be careful. Please?”

She was slightly irritated by his concern (as if she weren’t fully capable of doing her job, as if he weren’t the one who had habitually taken the unnecessary chances), but she hoped that she managed to keep most of it out of her voice. “I’ll be fine, Mulder. This task force will be a lot of autopsies and a lot of late hours, but it won’t be dangerous.”

“We don’t have a great track record with danger, Scully. I know...” He trailed off. Another sigh. “I understand why you have to do this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not worried about it.”

His acquiescence, even in the face of obvious uneasiness softened her a little. “I’ll call you when I get a break, Mulder. And I’ll see you tonight, even if it’s late.”

* * *

John stood in the conference room that had been commandeered into the headquarters for the task force and stared after the departing, self-important, stick-up-his-ass SAC with disgruntled irritation. Wasn’t that son-of-a-bitch supposed to _help_ him? He pondered alternative sources of help and pulled out his phone.

“Mulder.” The answering voice sounded rather tired, and there was a high-pitched whining in the background that indicated the probable cause of fatigue.

“Mulder, it’s John Doggett. You think you might help me out here?”

“In what way, exactly?”

“I’m leadin’ a task force to identify that serial killer that Monica uncovered. He’s killin’ up and down the east coast—seven people so far—and I’m not gettin’ a lot of practical help.”

“My practical advice would be to listen to Reyes—she seems to have a handle on this case.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, but the SAC told me not to.”

“Then my advice is to ignore him.”

“I could use some more useful help.”

“Listen, Doggett—”

“You wouldn’t happen to want another profilin’ gig, would you?”

“No, I really don’t. You _do_ know that I stopped profiling regularly even when I still worked for the FBI, right? They have an entire unit dedicated to it at Quantico. Behavioral Sciences—maybe you’ve heard of it. What more do you really think I can give you?”

“Yeah, they gave me a profile all right.”

“Just for kicks, let me guess. He’s a man in his mid-twenties to late-forties, of average build and looks, who is driven by a rage stemming from a hatred of his mother from a very early age. He was a bed wetter, who was made to feel inferior, which he took out on the world by killing small animals.”

“Spooky. You _are_ good, Mulder.”

“...Are you serious? That was a joke. That’s the average psychological profile of every serial killer that the FBI’s ever hunted.”

“And that’s exactly what I said.”

“What did the SAC say?”

“‘Get to work.’”

There was a pause. William had mostly ceased whining, but John could still hear an occasional fussy noise. Mulder expelled a very reluctant-sounding sigh.

“Yeah, OK, OK, I get the point. I’ll help you. You’re gonna have to get me access to the information you want me to look at, though. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I’m the last man your SAC wants to see. ”

* * *

Dana Scully looked down at another autopsy. Vicki Louise Burdick, murdered numerologist, last consulted by Monica to work on the numbers of this serial case. She looked up at the clock. 6:06 PM. Fantastic—such a late start meant that she would be getting done late and home even later. She sighed and rolled her stiff neck and unprofessionally wished that Mulder were there to rub it.

Not that he had ever done such a thing while in the field, regardless of the status of their personal relationship at the time, because that really would’ve been highly unprofessional. But, on the other hand, given the considerable number of profoundly unprofessional things they very regularly used to do, she did have to wonder why they had channeled all of their professional scruples into preventing them from doing the type of unprofessional thing that would at least make them happy, instead of getting them thrown in jail.

She rolled her neck again, added “daydreaming about partner” to the list of unprofessional things she was currently trying not to do, and glanced down at her tape recorder. The timestamp read “666.”

Strange.

She continued her external examination of the body, looked again at the distinctive “000” bruising. She squinted, reached for a magnifying lens. Those weren’t actually 6s...were they?

* * *

She sought out Monica in the office that had, until recently, belonged to the body she had just autopsied. She wanted to consult, see if Monica had turned up anything else that could explain what significance the “666” marking had to the case. She had tried to ask Mulder, calling him while she scrounged a very late dinner from a vending machine, but he had been largely unhelpful, and then, when she started prodding him about the possible significance of multiples of three, strangely skittish. 

Unfortunately, while Monica was considerably more forthcoming than Mulder had been, they were still no closer to determining where the numbers led (or if they were significant at all).

They stared at each other glumly, over stacks of papers.

“It just seems like we should get _something_ out of all this,” sighed Monica, summing up the overall mood of conversation.

 “Well, let’s go back to the beginning, then.” Scully’s strength had always been breaking things down to their component parts.

“What about threes?” asked Monica. Literal factoring wasn’t actually what Scully had had in mind for breaking the situation down to component parts, but she was willing to go along with it.

“What _about_ threes?”

“Well, there’s a lot of them, right? I connected four victims initially, but then ViCAP found two more, which brought the total to six. The first three were killed three years ago, and now there is a new group of three. The marking from the ring started out as three zeroes, and now it’s three sixes, which is even more suggestive. Three is a very powerful number.”

“Four victims this time, if you count the numerologist. Seven victims total,” Scully reminded her. Monica deflated a little, but she refused to give up entirely.

“What if he’s going to kill six victims this time and then disappear again? Maybe the latest victim threw him off; the initial plan was only to kill three, but then my consulting the numerologist threw someone else in his path who had the same numbers, and he was compelled to kill her too?”

“The ‘ _initial plan’_? Why are we taking the existence of a plan for granted? Whose plan?”

“Does it matter? Maybe it’s the universe’s plan.”

This entire case was increasingly ridiculous, but that statement was still too ridiculous to stand. The universe was not one entity, it was not sentient, and it did not actively make _plans_. Scully scowled her disapproval. Monica shrugged.

“I mean, on some level you believe in fate, right? In God?”

“That’s hardly the same thing, Monica.” It was too late and she was too tired to get into a theological discussion of free will.

Monica shrugged, gathered the victims’ charts into a folder, and stood up. “Either way, I think it’s probably about time for both of us to go home for the night and come back to the problem tomorrow.”

Scully could agree with that, and they walked down the hallway, still trying to figure out how to crack the case, when Scully happened to recognize the murderer’s ring on a man in the elevator. They jumped into action, bolted down the stairs in pursuit: two intrepid FBI agents fit for a Bureau recruting pamphlet.

They got stuck in a locked parking garage. Reality usually is quite different from the pamphlet.

There was no suspect in the parking garage that they could find, only a very strange man who invited them to play checkers, bantered about the nature of the universe, and danced to inaudible music.

* * *

At around 12:00 AM John had been staring fruitlessly at the map of the killings for so long that his vision started swimming. He groaned and blinked his eyes and shook his head. The map seemed to tilt on its axis again.

The six outlined on the map by the locations of the seven slayings became a nine. He stared at it for awhile. Well, shit.

“Not significant to victim number seven, my ass,” he mumbled. He knew that bastard SAC was overlooking something by so quickly dismissing the number on the map. And if the pattern held, if it was forming the number nine, the next murders would take place right around here. Better let Monica know.

He tried to call her. No answer. No ring, even. Well, maybe she was asleep. That could be a coincidence.

He tried Scully. No answer. Maybe it was a larger coincidence.

He called Mulder, who sounded asleep, at least if he could interpret the answer properly.

“Mpfhxfwr.” John pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it, as though staring would help him decipher that statement.

“Mulder? It’s me. Wake up.”

There was the sound of shifting fabric. “Who’s ‘me’?” Mulder now sounded suspicious.

“John Doggett.”

“That is not the usual ‘me’ who calls me at whatever-the-hell time it is now.”

“It’s after midnight. Have you heard anything from Scully?”

“Last I heard from her was around nine—she’s not home yet. I was expecting you to be her, actually.” There was a beat. “Is there a very bad reason why you’re asking me that?”

“Well, maybe. I think this guy might be lookin’ for two more victims—for a total of nine—and I haven’t heard from Scully or from Reyes, and I can’t reach either one of ’em.”

“ _Shit_ —why nine victims?”

“It’s six turned upside-down.” He suddenly became cognizant of how absurd that might sound, even to Fox Mulder, and hurriedly continued, “Look, I’ll explain later—let’s you and I go look for ’em. I don’t think the SAC will help me, and I’m not stupid enough to go chargin’ off without backup, if I can get it.” 

“I’ll be pissed off at you for maligning my investigative techniques later when I’m not too tired and worried to think straight.”

* * *

The gunshot echoing through the parking garage ratcheted up Scully’s already-sharp sense of foreboding, and she ran toward the sound, her senses on alert and her own gun at the ready. She rounded the corner to see the murderer lying dead next to Monica, her gun fallen out of his grip. John was straightening up from his shooter’s stance, looking tense, but relieved. Mulder was standing next to him looking no less tense, his own gun lowering to point at the ground.

The two of them might have made an impressive pair of dashing FBI agents for that Bureau recruiting pamphlet, except they both looked bedraggled. John clearly hadn’t slept in awhile. He had dark circles under red eyes and the look of exhausted intensity that comes from staring at evidence for too long. His suit was wrinkled and rumpled, and there was a coffee stain on his shirt. Mulder had clearly been asleep not too long ago. His hair was sleep-mussed, and he was wearing what he usually wore to bed (an undershirt and lounge pants) coupled with running shoes and a holster. His serious and tense expression made for a marked contrast with the ridiculous outfit.

Reality usually is quite different from the pamphlet.

The pair of them carefully evaluated the scene, observed that the suspect was dead, located their partners, and relaxed visibly, stowing guns back in holsters.

John hurried over to Monica, where she was sprawled on the concrete. He helped her to her feet and gave her a professional once-over. “You OK?”

Monica nodded. “Yeah. I think so.”

Mulder scrambled over to Scully. He pulled her against him and held her there in a distinctly unprofessional hug.

“I’m OK,” she reassured, but it was a bit muffled by his chest. She leaned against him for a quiet moment, listening to his elevated, but slowing heartbeat. “As happy as I am to see you, Mulder, who’s watching William that you could get at this hour?”

“Eh, I thought he was old enough to look after himself for awhile.”

She pulled back to stare at him in speechless horror. She opened her mouth, but she couldn’t seem to find the words.

“The Gunmen, Scully. I took him to visit the Gunmen—Jesus Christ, who do you take me for?”

She gave him a reproachful look and tried to work out how to say (with the minimum of profanity) that it was unfair to tease her like that just now, but Monica intervened. “There are three of them,” she noted, looking at Scully meaningfully and nodding.

“...There have always been three of them.” Mulder was puzzled.

“Three is a very powerful number,” reminded Monica, seriously.

Mulder blanched a little, but he recovered well enough, if recovery connoted rambling. “I, uh, suppose it does tend have very old mystic associations—predating Christianity, even, although the trinity is its most common association now. It was significant in Pythagorean thought—”

“Mulder. It’s OK. Relax,” muttered Scully, rubbing his forearm soothingly.

“What happened, anyway?” asked John, who apparently didn’t have the patience at this hour for intricate, mystical conversations about the number three. “What’re you doin’ in here? We were out lookin’ for you, and we thought we’d start here where the field investigation left off—didn’t expect to find you so immediately in the parkin’ garage.”

“Wait, why were you looking for us?” asked Monica.

“Because we _care_ ,” insisted Mulder, as if that were a very stupid question. Scully rubbed at his forearm again.

“No, I mean. What made you think there was any reason to worry in the first place? I mean, clearly you were right,” Monica gestured over her shoulder at the body, “and I’m obviously very grateful that you came, but what clued you in?”

“I saw somethin’ in the killer’s pattern. Made me realize there was gonna be nine victims; made me worry you two were gonna be eight and nine when I couldn’t get ahold of you.”

“Well, whatever you saw, John, you were right. Dana recognized the killer’s ring on a man in the elevator, and we chased him down here, but then we got stuck. We met an entirely different man, who seemed to be waiting for our suspect down here, but we couldn’t find the suspect, so we played checkers with the man while we all waited.”

Scully took up the story, “And then Monica noticed that the checkers matched our hair colors—red and black—which...seemed to imply that the killer was going to seek us out, to complete the set that he had started by killing Burdick, who was blonde...” She trailed off, a little uncertain if that was, in fact, what they had decided the checkers meant. The whole interlude with the strange man had a haze of unreality to it.

Mulder cupped her chin in his hands and tilted her face up toward his—he gazed into her eyes until she noticed he was trying to conduct a stealth field sobriety test and swatted at him. She hurriedly finished, “Which is obviously completely ridiculous, but turned out to be prescient. Because the killer was hiding down here after all.”

“Hold on; you mean to tell me there’s another guy down here? Where is he?!” demanded John.

Scully and Monica exchanged a look and hurried over to where the mysterious man had been, but he was gone. And so was his car.

She whirled to Monica. “Who _was_ that man, anyway?”

Monica frowned a bit and tilted her head like she was thinking. “I have no idea.” A brief pause, then, “What if he was God?”

Scully put on her best skeptical look. “Come on, Monica. He...he looked like Burt Reynolds!”

“We don’t know that God _doesn’t_ look like Burt Reynolds.”

She didn’t have a rebuttal to that. She opened her mouth, but she really couldn’t think of anything to say.

* * *

The next time Dana Scully thought about the number three, she had finally arrived back at home with her family. She had just put William down in his crib; Mulder was standing beside her with his arm wrapped around her waist, and she thought, as she turned toward him and pulled him down for a kiss, that maybe three was magic, after all.

* * *

“So you really think all of that was numerologically destined to happen? You think that the sum of a person’s characteristics and life choices can be foretold in a set of numbers determined at the moment of their birth?” Scully was on the phone with Monica the following afternoon, curled in a corner of Mulder’s old leather couch, watching William bang his toys together on a blanket on the floor.

“It’s all a matter of interpretation, Dana. Since we’re only humans, everything we do and see and think is going to be through our own lens of interpretation.”

That seemed like a reach, and Scully opened her mouth to say so, but Monica was continuing.

“For example, that four of yours? He’s not a typical four, but like all fours, his driving impulse is to contribute meaningfully to larger purposes. That _could_ be seeking out the unexplained. But it could also be his family.”

She thought of Mulder: of his tenacious loyalty and love, of the lost sister he never gave up on, of his unflinching devotion to her, of the family he’d never really had as long as she’d known him. Until now.

“Maybe,” she demurred, and then was quiet again. Monica seemed to be content to simply sit in the silence, and so she let it stretch out. Long, but not necessarily uncomfortable. But then she had to ask. “Do you _really_ believe it?”

“Believe what?” Monica was cheerful.

“I don’t know...that all the complexity in the universe can be reduced to a mere game. That those who can see the connections, grow to understand and then win that game.”

“I don’t _not_ believe it.”

“That isn’t an answer, Monica.”

“Are you sure? What do you believe in, Dana?”

She thought of the cross at her neck, watched her son play on the floor, heard his father humming tunefully in the shower. Felt the creaky comfort of the old couch beneath her. Sat with her friend on the phone.

She sighed, and tried to put it into words. “The way that all the tiny intricacies in the universe interact to knit together the whole, maybe? I don’t think it can all be reduced—those tiny intricacies are what actually imbue things with their meanings.”

She could hear Monica’s smile over the phone. “See, that’s what makes you a nine. Nine is completion. You've evolved through the experiences of all the other numbers to a spiritual realization that this life is only part of a larger whole.”

She smiled, herself. Maybe she could live with being a nine.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually did a fair bit of digging into numerology to write this. Mulder (10/13/1961) is, no joke, a four. Monica tries to make it fit at the end, but I still think it's a reach.


End file.
